Toby,
As I said, I really don't want to get caught up in a long discussion about the issue. And it really would be long, because this short exchange is sufficient to reveal that there is a whole lot of "getting on the same page" just in terms of the language and terminology we are using. Conceptually, we are not even in agreement about what ordination is at root. At best we have partially overlapping ideas.
So, we would have to either agree on a definition, or else understand how the other side is defining terms, without attributing "Roman Catholic" ideas to the other fellow... "Tiber", and all that pejorative nonsense. It is my "conception" of a "theology of ordination"--one which was hammered out of the biblical and exegetical fires of the Reformation--which is 450 years old, not my specific denominational affiliation. Formulated in opposition to Rome, the only way to see it as Romish is to carelessly glance
backwards at that age, when both were side-by-side (so to speak), and blur the distinct lines that were drawn
"long ago and far away,
and so irrelevant to today."
You write: "not pride, but respect." Well, frankly brother, that is exactly what pride is all about
: "getting my respect." When we don't receive what
we think is owed to us, our due, then we feel slighted.
You think *some* ordinations are not to be accepted, and *some* should be. OK, so do Presbyterians. Where you draw the line, and where they do is different. Who is right? What criteria shall we use? Your personal judgments?
Ordination is more than "set apart to the ministry". It is "set apart...
by the Church." OK now,
which Church? This has
everything to do with determining "which denominations have strayed," and how far. Everything to do with theological and interpretive disagreements. These are theological questions which sent us back to the Scriptures a long time ago to find the answers, not pragmatic questions we must think up new answers for in every age.
When YOUR church answers the question: "should we ordain this man?" they must determine whether the man has
ever been ordained, and if he claims (and proves) to have been previously under some so-called action, was it so like unto their intentions that they may receive that action as if done by themselves on the former occasion. And was he ever defrocked? If so, would this body recognize that action as legitimate? What effect would that action have on this body's course?
They are not
merely acknowledging Holy Spirit's calling, the church is taking an official action. These matters are considered so important that the church has been wrestling with them for centuries. We ought to be listening to some of their responses.